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A Robust and Efficient Privacy Aware Handover Authentication Scheme for Wireless Networks

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Abstract

A handover authentication protocol ensures secure and seamless roaming over multiple access points. A number of such protocols are proposed, but most of these protocols are inefficient or insecure. Very recently, Li et al. (Wireless Pers Commun 80(2):581–589, 2015) proposed a privacy-aware handover authentication protocol, and claimed their protocol to be more lightweight and secure than existing protocols. However, our analysis identifies that Li et al.’s protocol is insecure against access point impersonation attack. As a remedy, we proposed an improved protocol to fix the security weakness of Li et al.’s protocol. The improved protocol achieves the provable security in the random oracle model against the hardness assumptions of the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem and elliptic curve computational Diffie–Hellman problem. The proposed handover authentication protocol is also formally analyzed with the automated tool ProVerif. The improved protocol not only enhances the security but is more lightweight than other related protocols.

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Acknowledgments

Authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers Prof. Muhammad Arshad Zia, Mr Shahzad Siddique Chaudhry and the guest editor Prof. Jongsung Kim for their valuable recommendations to improve the readiability and presentation of the paper. SK Hafizul Islam is supported by the Outstanding Potential for Excellence in Research and Academics (OPERA) award, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, Pilani Campus, Rajasthan, India.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Shehzad Ashraf Chaudhry & Husnain Naqvi

  2. Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

    Mohammad Sabzinejad Farash

  3. Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani Campus, Pilani, Rajasthan, 333031, India

    SK Hafizul Islam

  4. Division of Information and Computer Engineering, College of Information Technology, Ajou University, San 5, Woncheon-Dong, Yeongtong-Gu, Suwon, 443-749, Korea

    Taeshik Shon

Authors
  1. Shehzad Ashraf Chaudhry
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  2. Mohammad Sabzinejad Farash
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  3. Husnain Naqvi
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  4. SK Hafizul Islam
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  5. Taeshik Shon
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Correspondence to Shehzad Ashraf Chaudhry.

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Chaudhry, S.A., Farash, M.S., Naqvi, H. et al. A Robust and Efficient Privacy Aware Handover Authentication Scheme for Wireless Networks. Wireless Pers Commun 93, 311–335 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-015-3139-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-015-3139-y

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